An Ironic Leaf With Half-A-Heart
by WitchGirl
Summary: I was reading fics and listening to Lifehouse at the same time and for some reason felt compelled to write a Carby type thing! Beware! I have no idea how I’m going to do this! PS: If you read it, you might get the title.


An Ironic Leaf With Half-A-Heart   
  
Summary: I was reading fics and listening to Lifehouse at the same time and for some reason felt compelled to write a Carby type thing! Beware! I have no idea how I'm going to do this! PS: If you read it, you might get the title.   
  
Disclaimer: Own nothing familiar.   
  
A/N: OK. I wrote this strangely and the dreams have a small titles, quotes, and poem/song things (I know it's weird AND stupid, but be quiet I just got back from Greece and I'm tired and cold!)   
  
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Irony   
  
"Her life was a perfect graveyard of broken hopes and she couldn't pick up the pieces again..."   
  
Lucy was hugging her knees in an exam room. She had been sobbing about something that saddened her greatly. She had betrayed close friend and she had hoped to apologize, yet she died before she could. It was ironic, the way life could do that. Her whole life was a story of missed chances and change and irony. And she sat in the exam room, putting the pieces of her life back together, hoping against hope to be missed by someone outside. She would have died to get attention from anyone around here. And so she sat, cried, and half-waited for attention. She thought no one could find her there. She was wrong. The door opened.   
  
"Oh, Luce, sorry, I didn't know you were in here," Carter said, turning on the lights. Lucy instantly wiped away her tears and stood up.   
  
"Wha- what?" she asked.   
  
"If you don't mind, all the exam rooms are full and it's hectic..."   
  
"How did you..." she looked at him puzzled.   
  
"What?"   
  
"I've been in here for two hours."   
  
"Oh, sorry. Maybe we can share the room. Where's your patient?" Carter asked.   
  
"You mean... You mean you didn't know I was gone?" Lucy asked, slightly hurt. Carter's expression was confused, yet concerned. He heard her voice tremble as she spoke.   
  
"Is something wrong? We thought you had a patient or something... are you OK?"   
  
"Fine!" Lucy held herself high and ran out, showing Carter anger, though hiding her despair.   
  
And later on, as she was lying on the floor of curtain three, her eyes overflowing with tears of pain and fear, she realized that she *was* dying for attention. And she would get more than she bargained for. And with her last ounce of consciousness, she figured, "My life's just one big ironic mistake! A perfect graveyard of broken hopes."   
  
"I can't find the words   
Can't get out the phrases!   
Just when he needs love   
I can't sing his praises!   
Where do the words go   
When I am before him?   
Oh, if I could show what I feel in my heart   
I'd implore him!   
I adore him!   
I'd die for him..."   
------------------   
  
Carter opened his eyes. The dream was startling. He hadn't thought of Lucy in a long time. He remembered that instant now and recalled that there were tears running down her face invisible to his eyes because it was busy and he wanted to get through his patients quickly. He should have spoken to her about what was wrong. That had been a month before February 2000. With this heavy on his mind, he drifted off again.   
  
~~~~~~~~~*****~~~~~~~~~   
  
With Half-A-Heart...   
  
"Her heart was but a half and the part to make it whole again she'd left behind long ago with the soul of her beloved..."   
  
Anna had told him. She remembered distinctly telling him. And now, she looked out of the window on the plane and sighed. She had left half her heart behind but she knew that the other half would continue to beat because she was going home. She was going back to family and hope and a wonderful life again and her half-a-heart leapt for joy. But it would always ache for the half she had left in Chicago. And she felt a tear trickle down her cheek, hoping he didn't forget her and wondering if he felt the same way she did.   
  
"Wondering,   
All at once I'm wondering   
What it's like to grow up   
And have someone show up   
Who'll be   
Awful nice and you'll be   
Such a silly fool, he'll   
Never look your way   
Wondering   
What it was that hit me   
And blundering   
Like I might be wondering   
If he might be wondering about me this way..."   
-------------------------   
  
Awakening again, he kicked himself for not taking her when he had the chance. For not telling her when he had the chance. For letting her slip through his fingers like sand on a windy day. And then, with little warning, she just got up and left. And she was gone again. The thoughts that swirled in his mind were difficult to organize or to even hold onto like ever changing mists whirling around in his head. Fatigued, he let them go, just as he'd let Anna go.   
  
~~~~~~~~~*****~~~~~~~~~   
  
Leaves in the Wind...   
  
"Fluttering away without a clue, she wandered away from her home like a leaf in the wind..."   
  
Abby ran a hand through her short brown hair. No one understood and no one ever will. Luka didn't even try. He cared, Abby could see, he deeply cared for her, but he didn't understand. With a mother like Maggie and a past such as she had, she was an interesting character, undecipherable and sometimes even like a shadow, fading into the background. Or a leaf, caught in the wind with no idea where she was being taken or of the sudden dives or loops she would make. And who would understand a floating leaf, forever flying in the ever-changing winds? Most people had direction yet she had none. Or was unsure of it yet. She had them once, as a girl, her future planned out, but her life had taken so many sudden turns, the wind had thrown so many new gusts, that she didn't know any more. And she didn't know who could understand that but a fellow leaf in the wind.   
  
"Abby, never change   
We like you just this way   
Abby, sweet and strange   
Stay as you are today..."   
---------------------------   
  
Carter awoke and shook his head. He wished he could tell Abby he was a leaf in the wind. That he would understand, or try at least. He once had direction, but lost it as well. He sighed as the weariness took away his thoughts of Abby.   
  
He turned over in his bed to find himself alone, as usual. Sometimes, he wished he could turn around and find a kind face, innocent in slumber and engulfed in a pleasant dream. Bored and more awake than he had been a few minutes ago, he imagined her. He imagined her smile. Two gorgeous red lips and the brightest blue eyes he'd ever seen with short light brown hair framing the lovely face.   
  
As he pulled at the features he realized that they weren't just one woman, but a mixture of three. She had Anna's lips. That was certain. And he was sure he had Anna's flare and independence.   
  
Then in her features, the woman definitely had Abby's hair. The soft brown, a little lighter than hers, but the same cut and the same hair he would have died to run his hands through. He had no doubt the imaginary woman had Abby's bravery and strength.   
  
But the most startling feature of all was the woman's eyes. She had Lucy-eyes down to the very last detail. The sea blue of them was astounding, and the determination and attention was all there. They were lively and helpful, but they seemed to be hiding something. Like Lucy. He believed that the woman would also be a bit saucy and stubborn like Lucy had been and it was now that he realized he had admired those characteristics more than he'd thought. He muttered something under his breath.   
  
"I can't find the words   
Can't get out the phrases!   
When she needed love   
Did sing her praises?   
Where did the words go   
When I was beside her?   
Why couldn't I show all the love   
That my heart felt towards her!   
I adored her!   
God reward her..."   
  
And it was now, now that he had created this image in his mind, now that he thought of Anna, Abby, and Lucy that he thought of something. Two had gotten away. Two had left him, either voluntarily or not, they had left him. One had taken off on an airplane and one had taken off on angel wings. Two he had let slip out of his reach. And now, he was letting the third slip too. But she was still there, out of the three women, she was the one who was there, breathing, smiling, and friendly. She was there for him. Regardless of anything else, he still had Abby. And that meant the world to him. She was slipping through his fingers and he wouldn't allow it. It had happened too many times before. It would not happen again.   
  
~~~~~~~~~*****~~~~~~~~~   
  
Carter didn't know what or how he was going to do what he intended. He was so engrossed in gathering his still swirling mists of thought, that he ran straight into her.   
  
"Hey, Carter, how are y-" But before she could finish, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the nearest room.   
  
"Abby." He said simply, grasping her shoulders as if to keep him from losing his balance.   
  
"Yeah, that's me alright. Is something wrong?" she asked. But Carter was smiling, though she could sense the nervousness.   
  
"Sit down," he said, nodding at the bed. She did so, slightly worried.   
  
"Everything is OK, though?" it sounded like a question. Carter nodded. He began to pace up and down the room.   
  
"Listen. Last night I had the weirdest procession of dreams. Each from a different point of view. The first was of Lucy and her view of things. The next was of my friend Anna and her thoughts. Finally, there was you."   
  
"Me?" Abby asked, eyes slightly wide. Carter nodded again.   
  
"Yes, you."   
  
"What about me?" Abby asked. Carter held up a hand.   
  
"I'll get to that," he told her, "Anyway. As I woke up from this last dream, I couldn't get back to sleep again, though I was tired. So I turned around to nothing and it may sound pathetic, but at that moment I began to imagine the kind of woman that might be laying there. Brown hair, blue eyes, and red lips. Different features of the different women I dreamed of. And I realized that out of all the things, the Abby feature, the hair, was the thing that stood out the most.   
  
"In my dream, you were thinking about how sometimes it seems you have no direction," Abby gaped but Carter didn't stop. "You compared it to a leaf in the wind. You thought no one could understand you. Well, Abby, I'm a leaf too, and I think the winds have blown us together for a reason.   
  
"I don't mean to sound too forward because I know that you and Luka recently... yeah and well, you may not care about any of this and you may like me as a friend, and you may not like me at all after I say this. But on the off chance that you do feel the same way, well, that's what I'm hoping on. Abby Lockhart, to be straight, I love you. And as I said, you might not care. You might let me down gently, you might scream in my face, or you might accept but out of the three women, I think I love you the most. Even the imaginary woman couldn't do. I don't want an ironic leaf with half-a-heart, I want a caring leaf with a full heart to help mend my broken one. And will you be that leaf, Abby?" Abby sat shocked on the bed. She sat in silence for three minutes just staring at him. Those three minutes seemed like hours to Carter, waiting nervously for results. Finally, Abby broke the silence.   
  
"Carter..." she whispered, "I didn't understand half of what you just said." Carter blushed but Abby smiled, "But I think I got the important things."   
  
"So Abby, are you going to mend my heart or break it again?" Carter asked.   
  
"Dr. John Truman Carter, I will mend your heart. I will be your leaf. And it's amazing you say that because... well, because I do think I'm like a leaf. You have very insightful dreams." At the first sentence, Carter's face was aglow with joy. Abby stood up, grinned herself, and embraced him, passionately.   
  
"Don't worry," she whispered in his ear, "If you want, I can be ironic. And I can give you half my heart."   
  
"I'm happy with just the leaf," he whispered back. 


End file.
